More on Mom

Well, I am working at putting into practice something Eckart Tolle recommends in his most recent book, "A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose." Instead of bemoaning an activity you do not enjoy, become fully present to it. If you are fully engaged, there is no room for complaints.

So, when I visited Mom this morning, I worked on being fully there, rather than splitting myself into the participant and the commentator/criticizer/frustrated daughter. This helped somewhat. More practice is necessary.

A Good One From George

Here's a recent quote from George W.

"Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century." - George W Bush, August 15, 2008

Unbelievable! Does this man spend even two seconds a day in self-reflection?

My Least Favorite Thing to Do

Let me be perfectly honest: My least favorite thing to do is to spend time with my mother. She requires daily attention in the running of errands, consulting with doctors, interfacing with Medicare and healthcare administrators, taking her to appointments, providing her only social contact. She is an anchor about my neck, and I don't know what to do about it.

She was never there for me as a child or as an adult, so no real relationship was ever established. There was no give and take, no heart-to-hearts, no fun, no laughter, no shared interests, in short, nothing on which to establish a relationship. The only relationship was that when she needed something, I was there. And so when she wasn't bathing or eating or drinking, I rescued here and brought her to California. Hardly a day goes by without me regretting that decision.

Not that I know what else I could have done since no one else would have taken care of her, and the nursing home to which she was discharged after her hospital stay in January would not release her to independent living. Even if they had, I would have had to run back to Wisconsin for the next big drama.

I have been so eager to leave So Cal for so many years. It is increasingly difficult for me to find freelancing work. Cal State has cut my classload. Things are drying up. I would like to leave in December, after the fall semester has ended. But what to do with Mom?

Two weeks there was a mix-up with her meds at the assisted living facility. She didn't get her pain meds, and she was going into heavy withdrawals when I arrived at her apartment about 9 p.m. She was spasming and twitching and shaking like I have only seen in movies about heroin addiction like "Sid and Nancy." I took her to the ER, where she was diagnosed as having had a mild heart attack. No surprise, as the spasming was more exercise than she's had in years.

She's now at a skilled nursing facility where she gets physical therapy. The therapist got my mom to tell the truth, whereas she is always lying to me. For months I have smelled her from time to time and have asked about her bathing. Turns out, as I suspected, she was lying to me, as she lies about so many things--something which also does little to build a relationship. She actually hasn't been bathing.

Yesterday when I left her, I checked her dirty clothes bag. Only one outfit in it, despite her having been at the facility for a week and a half. I had thought the outfit hadn't changed, but that was sometimes hard to tell, as she always wears a jacket. Even though I had brought about a dozen outfits for her, she had only changed clothes once.

Add to this mix the fact that all her investments are tied up in Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and Countrywide mortgages. Yikes! I am working with a broker to sell these off, but they're in very small bundles, which is not attractive to most investors. I am hoping for the best, but if all her investments go belly up, then my mother will be underfoot round the clock, living with me in my small one-bedroom apartment. That situation would make me do something I have skillfully avoided all my life: Take a corporate job that will get me out of the house for at least 10 hours a day. Yikes, trading one hell for another.

Big Oil Protest

This afternoon I walked the mile to Temple and Ocean to participate in an anti-big oil protest. Didn't seem right to drive to an anti-big oil protest, right! A beautiful day, the kind that makes me think I could easily spend the rest of my days in Long Beach. The protest took place in Bluff Park, overlooking the blue, blue waters of the Pacific.

Over the course of two hours, perhaps 25 people showed up. Mostly middle-aged and elderly folk, though there were a few young anarchists/punks. Three of the four protesters were friends of mine: James, Diana, TJ, and Peter Matthews, who has been running for Congress on a progressive agenda for a quarter century and will be a write-in candidate to oust Laura Richardson in the upcoming election. It's times like this when I think, "Maybe I am out of the mainstream. I mean, out of a town of 480,000, if four of 25 protesters are my friends!"

Funk Fest Smuggling

Last night Aaron and I attended the Funk Fest at the Greek Theater. We had attended last year's Funk Fest that featured the iconoclastic George Clinton. Funk is such fun, unassuming music. We would like to make this a mother-son tradition.

Because the Greek does not allow ticket holders to bring food into the venue, I smuggled our dinner in. I bought chicken salad, fancy olives, tortellini salad, Greek salad, blueberries, and miniature cheesecakes at Wild Oats; transferred them to ziplock bags; placed the bags inside two larger bags; and strapped the bags to my inner thighs. Then I covered the contraband with the only loose skirt I have--a gift from friend Helene in Nova Scotia. Thanks, Helene! To make extra sure I would not be detected, I tied a long scarf around my waist and wore some outrageous earrings that always attract attention.

We had a scrumptious dinner, much better and much cheaper than the lousy, overpriced hamburgers and hot dogs the stands were serving up. Later as Aaron purchased his third $12 beer, I said that next year I should forget about the food and duct tape bottles of beer to my thighs. Aaron responded in his usual style, a quick-witted comment ready at any moment, "I'm sure you'd meet a lot of guys that way."

My Birthday Bash

So wonderful to introduce everyone as most of my friends had never met one another.
Thanks to Bob, who graciously offered his house as a gathering place. Thanks to Heather, who flew in from Denver, and Mark, who flew from San Francisco for the day. I really appreciate your efforts. I want to also say a special thanks to Dennis, Aaron the son, Tyler, Bryant, Jessica, and Aimee, who made the most amazing and surreal collage from the photos, glitter, glue, and rhinestones that I provided. I have the collage hanging on my bedroom door. Yippee!

Los Osos Oaks State Reserve

This past week I took a short camping trip in the Central Coast. I camped at San Simeon State Park, approximately seven miles south of Hearst Castle, a campground where I have stayed on at least three other occasions. This time, it was a bit crowded for my tastes, as I have often had the entire upper campground to myself. Not this time.

Perhaps with the economy in trouble, Americans are rediscovering camping. After all, it's far cheaper than a motel, that is, if you don't go the RV route. In some ways, I welcome this trend, as I have been sorely disappointed when I have queried my students in recent years as to their camping experience. Only one student in the past five or six years has ever camped--and he was an Australian. So, perhaps Americans will once again become the outdoor explorers. We'll see.

Of course, though this may be a wonderful thing on a mass scale, for me, the long-time camper and seeker of solitude, it definitely has its drawbacks. I was, however, grateful for the getaway, as the Central Coast of California is truly spectacular. Golden hills interspersed with greenery. Miles of protected beaches.

The highlights of this brief jaunt: watching the brown pelicans swoop and dive at the San Simeon pier, gazing at the stars, and the Nit Wit Castle, also known as the Poor Man's Hearst Castle in Cambria--a folk art amalgamation built by a cantankerous man who had the good fortune of being the town's garbage collector and so he used what he collected to build his eccentric abode.

For anyone who travels to the Cambria area, be sure to visit Nit Wit. It's well worth the $10 tour.

Another gem I discovered: Los Osos Oaks State Reserve in Los Osos. I have camped very near this reserve at Montana de Oro many times, but never saw the sign for the reserve. I was heading back to LA when I spotted it and so I checked it out. So glad I did. I had the entire reserve to myself. It was filled with the twisting, turning limbs of hundreds of old California oaks, that enchanting species of tree that does not just grow vertically but often takes a rest and grows horizontally for a few years before ascending once again. I took trail after trail in this Hansel and Gretel woods. What a magical place!

All These Things

The following is a short story I wrote as a gift to my son upon his graduation from college:

All These Things

Once, so long ago now, her son lay in an incubator, a precious baby-blue- and white-striped incubator hat pulled over his teeny ears. Precious because his mother said the hat was precious. Believing it was, made it so. That’s why, when he graduated from the incubator into the seemingly unenclosed world, she asked for the hat. She wanted to keep this little thing forever.

This was against hospital rules, as the hats were sterilized and used again for other incubator babies. But she insisted, and a nurse, perhaps one who also knew that some things that are meaningless to most of humanity are precious to a few or only to a single person, this type of nurse handed her the hat as if she were giving her illegal drugs, quickly, slyly, so that no one would notice her indiscretion.

And so Heidi kept the incubator hat that Aaron had worn as a jaundiced newborn in a box high in a closet. No one knew what this little hat meant to Heidi, just as no one knew of all the other things in her life that were precious, just to her: the orange tree she could see outside her kitchen window that seemed more like a friend than a member of the vegetable kingdom; the potted plants, one on each step, that led to her above-garage apartment some years later, plants that seemed to welcome her home at the end of a long work day: and a small pool of rainwater in which she saw the full moon reflected. So many things like these were seemingly there just for her, since no one else seemed to notice them—the dew on her mailbox, the light in an empty storeroom, an afternoon breeze that caused the grass to tremble, the evening sun on a factory wall, the headlight illuminating a row of cardboard boxes. Only Heidi stopped to take in this beauty, to thank whomever might be listening for the beauty that surrounded her. And so if she were the only one who noticed, was that such a huge leap to think that this dew, this light, this empty storeroom, this breeze, this grass, this factory wall, this collection of boxes had been created for her alone? Not such a leap, if you were Heidi.

Throughout his childhood, Aaron shared his mother’s slant on the world. He talked of faeries who lived underwater in secret caves, while his mother saw them illuminating the branches of a tree underneath which she slept one night at El Capitan State Beach and cavorting under a waterfall by which she hiked in the redwoods near Shelter Cove. He saw a ghost sitting on a chair outside the bathroom, while on the same night, Heidi dreamed of the same woman sitting in a chair.

Aaron and Heidi were kindred spirits and often when one had an experience alone, he or she thought it had occurred with the other person present. Aaron always included Heidi, even though she wasn’t with him, and Heidi always included Aaron, even though he wasn’t with her.

This was natural, since they shared a lot of interests. Heidi liked hole-in-the-wall restaurants, art museums, architectural tours, good coffee, reading, travel, witty conversation, prairie dogs, little boxes, hedge hogs, lichen and moss, philosophical discussions, the pursuit of knowledge, oddly shaped and strangely hued cacti, silliness, and gnomes. And sure enough, so did Aaron.

He did not, however, share her love of maps or of bizarre corners of the world like Kaliningrad Oblast, the Russian exclave bounded by Poland, Lithuania, and the Baltic Sea, or Point Roberts, an American town on the southernmost tip of Tsawwassen Peninsula in British Columbia. Heidi was fascinated by these geopolitical anomalies. Aaron wasn’t. This is something Heidi could not understand—her son’s lack of excitement over cartography and tiny outposts of humanity separated from their motherlands. But somehow she forgave his lack of interest in such things. Perhaps there was something amiss with him. Perhaps, she thought, this is the one chink in his perfection: his disinterest in geography. No one after all is allowed perfection, so this was Aaron’s failing.

Otherwise, he was simply amazing, as Heidi’s friends were quick to tell her. One friend who was 11 years Heidi’s junior and was about at her wits’ end with lousy guys had gone so far to contend, “You’ve created the perfect man, Heidi. It’s just that he’s nine years old and your son.”

Mothers need this kind of feedback to keep their own superlatives in check. Once in a while Heidi would step back from her son and eye him as one might a painting in a museum. “Yes,” she’d say after a moment’s reflection, “he is quite wonderful, and I would think so even if he were the clerk at Vons’ son.

This perfection began at a very early age. As a newborn, Aaron chose not to respond to sounds. As Heidi washed dishes, sometimes a pan would clang against the counter or a bowl might drop near his little head. Aaron was never startled, though sometimes he’d smile. A hearing specialist at UCLA determined that his neurons were firing just fine, he wasn’t deaf. She concluded that he just wasn’t ready to participate in the stuff of everyday existence, but, for now, preferred to ignore the outside world. Hmm, Heidi thought, isn’t this the state to which all mystics aim? And here was her son, already there before he hit two months old.

To give credence to Heidi’s theory, Aaron would often sleep in his baby seat with his forefingers lightly touching his thumbs, the position Heidi had learned to maintain during Zen meditation. When she told his father about this, he the atheist thought nothing of it. It was merely a random reflex like a dog running in its sleep, he said. But Heidi would look at Aaron as he slept. She knew differently. She knew he was receiving messages from the beyond and did not want to sully himself yet with the muck of this planet.

Heidi also watched Aaron as he began to crawl and to walk. Every so often, he would interrupt his play to lie face down and close his eyes for a minute, sometimes less, then bound up again, ready for action. When Heidi asked him what he was doing, Aaron said, “Praying, Mommy. What did you think?” He continued to prostrate himself before who knows what god until he was maybe five years old.

A year before he reached the cessation of prostration, he did something Heidi always thought of as his Jesus-instructing-the-elders-at-the-temple moment. Heidi and Aaron had just purchased a chocolate buttermilk bar at Lina’s Donuts. As they were heading out the door, Aaron turned and with a wide, sweeping movement of his hand, as if to encompass all those before him, he said, “Have a happy life!” and then marched off toward Heidi’s VW van. The old men who cut up the world as they drank round after round of coffee paused for just a moment to take in this young boy’s wisdom.

“Have a happy life, son?” Heidi asked.

“Yes, you, too, Mommy Dude,” Aaron said with conviction. “You have a happy life too.”

Heidi knew that her life was happier because of her son. She loved him so much that she wanted to tell him about the little things that no one ever talked about: how for a long while she had been mismatching her socks, failing to notice the subtle distinctions in their black-on-black patterns; how she had thought a brightly colored water tower was a hot-air balloon; how she had bumped into a tree while telling two guys who were drinking on their roof to be careful; how she had thought a dog statue in a plot of petunias was a real dog and had always thought it strange that the animal never moved; how holding a cup of hot tea against her cheek made her feel deeply loved; and how cupping her hands over the rim of the cup and breathing in the steam transported her to a jungle. She wanted to tell him of the joy she felt each day when she saw the tomatoes on the vine outside her back door or when she sat on the porch and took in the sanctity of objects, sensing something living within the sidewalk, cars, FOR RENT signs, and the garbage. Heidi wanted to tell Aaron how much better coffee tasted in a ceramic cup and how good it felt to hold her palm over the bubbles in a Jacuzzi and how she really liked the sucking of hungry koi fish on her hand, even though she jumped and shrieked when they did this. Heidi thought of how many hundreds—no, thousands—of these things she would like to tell her son, but just blurting them out didn’t seem right and listing them seemed even less right. Perhaps art might work, she thought.

She would write a short story for her son and through the words hint at all these things. And so she sat down to write: Once, so long ago now, her son lay in an incubator, his precious baby-blue- and white-striped incubator hat pulled over his teeny ears.

Ad-Agency Sinecure

I'm working at an ad agency in Brea for two and a half weeks while the full-time proofreader is on vacation. Almost immediately after saying "yes" to the gig, I had regrets. I would be missing out on my spring break from Cal State, which is next week. Also, I had wanted to spend some time with Aaron, who is on spring break this week.

As it is, he is working this week, so I wouldn't have seen much of him anyway. And the workload is extremely light--I've probably only spent an hour doing ad-agency work during the past six days there. And when there's nothing for me to proof, I'm free to do other work.

I had worked there twice before for much longer stints when the former proofreader had been out of town, attending to ill parents. So far it's been great, as I've been able to grade papers, record grades, check email, and get lots of editing and correspondence completed for Long Beach Magazine.

The copy writer has just published a book, "Good Dad, Bad Dad," a comedic parenting primer. I'm sure that he must have written the manuscript during down time at the agency. Such a deal!

It's mind-boggling when I consider all the millions of hours that office workers around the world spend doing things other than the work they are paid to do. How many novels and screen plays are written on company time? How many online businesses are managed from 9 to 5? How many Internet romances are launched on the company's dime?

At least this is one way workers can stick it to the corporate machine that otherwise drains the life blood out of them.

You Tube Censorship

You Tube pulled a stream, video, film, whatever they're called that features powerful words by JFK, Martin Luther King Jr. and presidential candidate Ron Paul. The poster was given no reason for the censorship, though he has written to You Tube many times.

Please watch and post to your sites. Spread the message of someone in public life--thank God!--advocating for the Constitution and an end to preemptive war.

Clinton and Obama certainly aren't. When asked, both said that they would continue the illegal and unconstitutional practice of signing statements, in which Congress passes a law and the president signs the bill into law, but then issues a signing statement, picking and choosing what aspects of the law the executive will abide by or negating the law entirely. In this manner, Bush has made a regular practice of the unitary executive, a means by which the judicial and legislative branches of government are nullified and the executive reins supreme. Hmmm...isn't that the definition of a dictatorship?

Wake up, folks! Wake up! Write and call your representatives. Tell them, like I have done many times to Sens. Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein, "Why are you such cowards? Why don't you stand up for the Constitution? You're acting as if Bush is a Mafia boss who will have you rubbed out if you cross him. For god's sake, save this country. Do something. Otherwise, history will l look back at you as cowards, absolute cowards."

Well, and of course, history will look back at each and every American who did nothing, said nothing, just as history has harshly judged the German people for the atrocities of the Nazis. If you are doing and saying nothing to save the Constitution and to demand the rule of law, then you, too, are a coward and history will look back at you with scorn.

As Helma, the mother of my deceased boyfriend Mike and someone who lived in Nazi Germany, told me, "This is exactly what happened with Hitler. This is how it started."

How do you want it to end?

Where Were my Fellow Americans Today?

Some 60 percent of Americans now feel it was a big mistake to attack Iraq, and presidential candidates Clinton and Barack are fighting for the prize of whose more anti-war. Yet where were these millions of Americans today, almost five years to the day after the start of the Iraq invasion? Why weren't they marching in the streets with me?

This was my 20th or so protest, post-9/11. Each time I attend a march, the crowds get thinner. This time there were somewhere between two and 10 thousand, depending on if you believe the police or the organizers. But even if you go with the high figure, that's only one out every 2,000 Southern Californians. I guess the other 1,999 were watching TV or drinking or shopping instead.

Or maybe they were scared. Actually, the sheriff department's presence certainly could have deterred some citizens who may have thought of exercising their First Amendment rights. The Blue Line station on Willow Street sported a paddy wagon and five patrol cars, as well as 20 or so officers on the platform. I asked one what this heavy presence was about. She said it was because of the march. "But we're peaceful," I said. Then she came up with a reason: They were making sure that no one carried a stick on board, the kind that's used to support a protest sign. She said these are considered weapons. Oh, my gawd! If that were true, why not have a lone officer stationed at the entrance to the platform to tell any protesters that they could not carry sticks on board! This was intimidation, pure and simple.

My favorite sign of the day--and, yes, unfortunately, I forgot my camera--was "I Love America, But I Miss the World's Respect." Amen to that. Now when I look at my world-map shower curtain--and I do so several times a day--I often think, not "Where would I like to go?" but more "Where can I afford to go?" Afford, not just in terms of the deflated dollar, but in terms of safety and a friendly reception.

Another good one: "I Love America, But I Think We Should Start Seeing Other People." Amen to that!

So, yes, I'm overall disappointed by my fellow Americans, dispassionate, lazy, uninformed, self-absorbed, or scared as they seem to be. But I was also encouraged by the number of young people who took to the streets of Los Angeles today. Perhaps there is hope. As anthropologist Margaret Mead said, "Never underestimate the power of a few committed people to change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

And yet, it sure would be nice if it were a big group of committed people. Yes, that would make things happen a whole lot quicker.

You Look Good for Your Age

Last week I drove to LA to meet Aaron and his new girlfriend, Regine. We had dinner at a retro restaurant, the HMS Bounty. Complete with large, upholstered booths, nautical paraphernalia, and red-glowing buoy lights, the Bounty is adjacent to the Gaylord Apartments, the ample lobby of which sports photos of '20s and '30s film stars and display cases of memorabilia, presumably of those who once graced the rooms of the establishment

On Sunday I saw Aaron again, and he told me that Regine had said I look good for my age and that her father, whom he met last week for the first time, looked good too. I looked at him and said, "Well, Son, and you look good for your age too."

"Thanks, Mom," he said with a bright smile and so the following banter, so typical of our interactions, began.

Aaron: Maybe we should start saying that to young people, you know, like to 16-year-old girls. Just when they're feeling insecure about their bodies.

Heidi: Well, Son, that would take on a whole different meaning. "You look good for your age" would mean "Oh, I see that your breasts are fully developed."

A: Yeah, I see what you mean. How about "You look good for your age." (As he said this, he motioned with his hand as if to include the entire milieu.) Like say that to someone from the Middle Ages.

H: Yeah, like: "Everyone else of your time looks like shit, living as they are in cold, damp, rat-infested hovels, eating moldy bread and rotting meat, and fighting off the plague, but you, you look good for your age."

I just love these insights into the language, these plays on words. What fun language is!

Gnomeland Security T-shirt Perfect for Your Next Trip Through Airport Security

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I've Given Birth!

Last night I gave birth. Not to a kicking, screaming, diaper-wetting baby, mind you, but to a business that I have been struggling to launch for almost a year. Last night it finally made its Web presence known to the world. Finally, finally, finally, after much hang-wringing, a whole lot of time, and approximately $4,500 in hosting fees, Web design, business cards, an ad on the back of my truck, and T-shirt printing costs, gnomesense.com has entered the world.

I had the idea early last year to start a business with Aaron using his artwork for artsy, edgy T-shirts. So I brainstormed ideas and came up with a bunch of good ones. But I wanted to launch the business with Gnomeland Security, an authoritarian-looking gnome with his hand in his pocket ala Napoleon. A spoof on the whole Homeland Security bullshit. My way of chiseling away, if ever so slightly, at the fear that has gripped this country. Yes, I am a big believer in calling your congressional representative and the White House comment line and in marching in the streets, but sometimes humor is even more disarming. This is my way of telling the government that I will not buy into its comic-book drama and manipulation.

So, I am asking each and every one of you who reads this blog to please visit gnomesense.com and order a T-shirt or two. That would mean so very much to me and my "baby."

The Magic Lamp

I flew to Wisconsin on Wednesday to sell my mom's car and the rest of her furniture and to pack up what was left. While I was there, I also shipped the toilet seat with safety bars that she wants in her new place, the framed map of the United States that had always hung over her desk, and the brass floor lamp with a night light in its base that I considered a magical world when I was child, playing on the floor in its glow.

Well, truth be told, I still consider it a magical world, and so I fretted and stewed over that lamp more than anything else that I had wanted to keep from my mom's household. I wanted to check it as luggage on one of my plane trips to California, but the dimensions exceeded the maximum 62 inches. I thought of asking my former mother-in-law to store it for me. I even thought of driving my mom's Camry back to California just so that I could transport the lamp. The pictures of the lamp and me that are featured in this blog were taken by Aaron when I thought I might never see my lamp again. That was before I hit upon the idea of unscrewing the top and the arm, duct-taping them to the pole, and shipping the lamp via UPS.

I felt so good after I made arrangements for the lamp. There are very few things in my childhood worth remembering, but for some reason, that night light in the base of that floor lamp captures a sense of wonder and mystery that I did not want to give up. I told Aaron of the fondness I had for the lamp, but he brushed it off. He thought I was wacko for wanting to drive 2,000 miles just to provide for its safe passage.

I made my strongest case to this scoffing son of mine: "Some day you'll have kids who will play on the floor in front of this lamp. They'll turn the night light off and on and peer into the slits at the base of the lamp where the light shines through and they'll think, too, that this is a magical world. How can you deprive your future children of that wonder, that adventure, Aaron? What the hell is wrong with you? What kind of a lame-ass father are you going to be?"

That, of course, made him smile widely and say, "I guess the kind of lame-ass father who doesn't let his kids get obsessed with night lights."

But you just wait. When I get the lamp in my apartment, guess who will be sitting on the floor, drinking a beer, and turning the night light off and on. Only he probably won't do it when I'm around. Only when he has a few of his beer-drinking friends over when I'm not there. I bet they'll all be switching the light off and on and wondering about the wondrous world contained within the base of my magic lamp.

And some day, some day, Aaron's kids will come running to me, shouting, "Grandma, Grandma, get down on your belly and look while I turn on a magic world for you." That's right. That day will come, for sure.

Mom Fantasy

Strange thoughts have been popping up in my head lately. Not often, but once in a while, I get this flash: Perhaps Mom was saved from the grips of death in order to have time to develop the relationship with me that we have never had.

I get these images of her and me spending the last few years of her life bonding like we never have before. She is a different person, open to new ideas, interested in other people, ready to have fun.

I have not nurtured this fantasy; I simply observe it when it arises in my brain. Whether it will manifest in reality is yet to be seen.

Spiritual Experience at the Museum of Jurassic Technology

My very favorite place in Los Angeles is the Museum of Jurassic Technology. For its strangeness, its eccentricity, its wonder. It's hardly a museum at all, if by "museum" one means a place where one goes to find out about the world. You see, in this museum not everything is to be taken as a fact, or it might be some fact, some whimsy, or just that someone had too much weed when he was writing the copy for the information plaques. You never really know.

First off, you have to be buzzed into the museum; you can't just walk through some grand entrance. The exhibits don't change, but that's OK because you have to keep going back to soak it in. There is an exhibit about folk remedies, like eating mice--fur, tails, and all--on a slice of toast to ward off bed-wetting. Then there's the Napoleon library and the wing devoted to the cat's cradle, yes, that string game you may have played in elementary school. Miniatures figure prominently, micro-miniatures, to be exact, teeny weeny sculptures balancing on the eyes of needles and delicate crystals fashioned into baskets of flowers that can only be seen under a microscope. And don't miss the trailer homes of the mid-1930s with two maps of the world that are lit up where trailer parks and trailer-home manufacturing operations were located in 1936, or so the map contends. If you didn't know, there was one of the former in Greenland and one of the latter in Mozambique. Hmmmm...this is precisely what I was mentioning earlier--authentic-looking photographs from the era showing families happily preparing meals within their tin homes juxtaposed with fabulist maps.

Upstairs is the Russian tearoom, complete with silver samovars and staffed by a Russian woman in her mid-30s. Next door is the theatre, which shows bizarre flicks, and between the two is a beautiful water closet with a toilet that has a silver handle that you pull in order to flush it. When I was at the museum last night, I used the toilet, only to find that others who had gone before me did not know what the silver handle was for.

Last night at the museum was a spiritual experience for me. I heard, along with friend Bob Martinez, a concert by Aurelia Shrenker and Eva Salina Primack, two beautiful young women who were backlit by candlelight and sang like angels or gypsies, take your pick. Bob and I sat in the front row, near enough to touch them. On my right sat two ladies adorned in costumes of the 1800s with touches from other time periods thrown in. Aurelia played the dulcimer, and Eva, the accordion. Both sang Georgian, Albanian, Greek, Corsican, and Appalachian tunes, some so painfully sad and beautiful that I was close to tears.

As they sang, I fell in love with them, there's no other expression that describes the way I felt. They were so beautiful and their souls, which poured forth through their music, were so beautiful, and I wanted to be as close as I possibly could to that beauty. Isn't that a good definition of "being in love"? I hugged and thanked both of them afterwards and told Aurelia that this had been a spiritual experience for me. Bob and I then wandered about the museum, but returned for the 10 o'clock concert to hear the same songs once again.

Ah, what a magical evening! Two angels at my favorite place in LA. It just doesn't get much better.

Friday Night with Heidi, Rudolph, and Special Banana Bread

It's been a long, hard couple of weeks. I needed a break, so I watched the DVD I had ordered from Netflix prior to Christmas but had not been able to view because of the mom drama. "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" was tonight's fare. Yes, you heard right.

How many years--nay, dare I say decades--has it been since last I saw "Rudolph"! But recently I had heard a segment on NPR about a puppeteer who had rescued the original Rudolph from the trash bin and was restoring him to his former glory. This prompted me to put the DVD in my cue.

What a perfect complement Rudolph was to a few slices of "special" banana bread. This, too, was supposed to have been enjoyed on Christmas Day, but instead I froze it, knowing it would not be a good idea to pack it in my luggage. Those darned, working-overtime German shepherds!

I noticed things about the movie that I had not noticed as a child. Top of the list is that the male elves wore coats but no pants. And these coats covered their bums alright, but they were cut high in the front, revealing not only their crotches but the bottoms of their tummies too.

If you don't recall, the major theme is "Misfits have a place too." Remember, there's Rudolph whose nose precludes him from participating in the reindeer games but whose blinker comes in handy during a blizzard on Christmas Eve. Then there's Hermie, the elf who longs to be a dentist, and Yukon Cornelius, the prospector who never finds silver or gold. And there is the Island of Misfit Toys, a sad assembly of boats that can't float, a jack-in-the-box named Charlie, a bird that can't fly, and a train with square wheels--all abandoned by children who preferred conventionality to novelty. Even the abominable snowman is a misfit who finally finds his true calling--placing stars atop Christmas trees without the aid of a ladder.

All these misfits got me thinking: Why is it that the misfit story in all its multitudinous machinations is so common when there are truly so few misfits in our conformist society? It seems every coming-of-age story is about a misfit who saved the day and was embraced by his fellows for his inner beauty and his courage against the odds, yet, truly, how often have real misfits been so lauded? Perhaps after they're dead, sure enough, but when they're breathing? It's hard to come up with a single example.

Well, maybe this is all just the banana bread talking.

Looking for a Place for Mom

During the past few days, I have been visiting assisted-living facilities in Long Beach. I have stepped into places that each one of us pass on our way to the office or the store or a bar, but never venture inside. It's a world I knew existed but never cared to explore.

First off, these places ain't cheap. Not by a long shot. To get anything decent and private, you're shelling out between $2,500 and three grand a month. That includes three meals and three snacks a day, emergency pull cords in every room, and more activities than you ever had at summer camp. Exercise classes, yoga, current events, shopping trips, breakfasts and lunches out on the town, church services, card games, bingo, crafts, sing-alongs around the piano, book discussions, excursions to the Getty Museum and to Catalina.

But looking at the sign-up sheets for these events, I saw few names. Most residents, it seems, choose to nod off in the lounge or hang out by the front door. Are they waiting for a daughter or son who never arrives? It's a chilling thought I couldn't get out of my mind.

One place I visited yesterday, the Crofton Manor Inn, reminded me of cheap motel. Everyone from the housekeepers to the director to the woman who grabbed my hand and wouldn't let it go seemed a bit off-kilter. The carpet was worn, the halls were dark, the rooms were even darker. The "deluxe" one-bedroom looked down onto a wall of razor wire and vibrated with rap music coming from the apartment building next door. My tour guide also showed me a studio shared by two women whose beds were lined up, headboard to footboard, against one wall that barely left room to walk to the toilet. I couldn't leave this establishment fast enough.

In the end, I have decided on Healthview's Pine Villa. The staff are friendly and professional. Everyone from the maintenance man to the cook to the director seem genuinely happy to be there. The dining area looks like a restaurant. And best of all, my mom's room is sunny and cheerful. As it's the model apartment, it's nicely furnished, and the director said she would let my mom use everything that's there at no extra cost, since she's moving from Wisconsin and doesn't have any furniture. She'll have a small bedroom with a twin bed, dresser, and night table; a breakfast nook/kitchenette with table, chairs, microwave, and fridge; and a living room with couch, end table, and rocking chair. Both the bedroom and the living room have an eighth-story view of downtown and a slice of the ocean. If this apartment were in a non-senior building, I sure wouldn't mind living there. Though it's $400 more per month than my second pick, the room is so warm and inviting that I am hoping this will make my mother's transition easier.

Each day I talk with her on the phone, she seems more and more anxious, frenetic, yet the physical therapist tells me she's doing well. I wonder if this anxiety is part of the whole getting-unhooked-from-the-pain-meds syndrome. She's basically going through withdrawals. My mother is the only junkie I've ever had close contact with, so I'm not sure about all this, but it sure seems that's what's going on.

The only subject of concern now is whether the skilled nursing home where she is currently residing will mark "dementia" on the forms that must be filled out and faxed back to Pine Villa. If that's the case, then my mother will be confined to a locked floor and given a roommate. No sunny, cheerful, private room. No privacy. And another $600 a month. I would hate to see this happen to her. Surely, it would be the death of her.